#menri

Machine and animal sounds combined echoed from all around him, here and there a bird would twitter a song, and a machine would reply with dings and whistles. Menri followed the pulsating calling into the machinery forest and came out upon something clean and well-made. A latticed green wall led the way into the Temple of Sound, a well-worn path into the marble, showing Menri the way forward. He had no questions or qualms about where he was – the leading feeling had shown him the way here, to this Temple, and change was in store inside. Two large staircases were in front of him, leading the way above and to an entrance found in the very top of the towering room. Winged shapes swooped and sung their way down, swallows and doves filling the room with a cacophony of sound.

The walls were smooth and polished, full of fountains and waterways tracing down silver inlays in the marble. A light twinkling sounded through the chambers, barely heard over the birds, and drew Menri deeper into the Temple. As he walked through hedgerows and clipped topiaries, small flashes of shapes graced the edges of his vision. It seemed he was not alone here. The chime sounded again throughout the Temple room, and the marble was cold underfoot. Menri enjoyed the walk, gazing around at everything that surrounded him. The sky through the Conservatory windows was tinted a faint green by moss growing on the inside of the glass, and the honeycomb webbing holding everything together funneled the sparkling Wellsprings water through them, bringing it all over the Conservatory.

Menri wandered deeper into the Temple, green walls of spruce hedges herding him to his destination. The chime was louder and more consistent now, calling, beckoning him. It pulled at the jade in his chest, telling him there was something new to find. So off to find it he went, deeper and deeper. The glass walls towering above him were soon blocked out, and the only light came from some source farther into the maze. Menri continued, the light shining brighter as he walked further, the pull deeper. He reached another large hallway after the maze of bushes, and wearily crept in. Menri sat, wrapped his tail around his paws, and stretched. The pull was still there – stronger than ever – but he was tired.

He had wandered for a long time, to this humming temple and its well-trimmed topiaries. The Conservatory above was unchanged, the same light gleaming through and around him, catching the small flecks of mica in the tile and dazzling them into Menri’s eyes. This chamber was different from the regal and arching crown jewel that had greeted him; instead, this area seemed to exist in disrepair. The silver and marble were more whorled together, more familiar with each other. The water trickled, smelling of damp earth and mushrooms, unlike the sparkling streams of cold mountains that flew across the walls in the entrance. Menri turned around, studying his surroundings carefully, inspecting them. The ceiling was short and squat, but still beautiful in a derelict way. Covered with miniscule clumps of reindeer moss and ferns hanging limply from the darkened construction, this part of the Temple existed in a quieter space.

The right felt familiar, like someone he had known in an old life, a friend to him in his confusion. The corridor sang and whistled like a swooping swallow, cheerily trilling and letting everyone know how happy it was to be. The left felt like a hawk diving for a rabbit, claws reaching and eyes glinting with the thrill of the chase. No, Menri decided. “The right is much more safe!” Hopping up from his perch, he watched himself as he walked in the mirrored ice. A blue glow filled this hallway, from light filtering underneath. “Wait..underneath?” Menri didn’t have much time to ponder this, as something odd in the reflective ice caught his eye. His form was reflected towards him in a strange way – his features longer, his eyes colder. He seemed desaturated and colorless.

The birds at his side and nestled in his tail were also in the mirror of ice. In the reflection, they were tiny, snapping lizards, ruffs bristling with anger and eyes beaming with distrust. Menri tore his gaze away from the vision, shaking his head. “Surely that couldn’t be true.” He meekly looked again, however, and the image of not-him was closer, in sharper detail. Dead leaves hung limply, and the flower petals that had always fallen on the ground around him were nowhere to be seen. His form had a pallor to it, a sheen of unkindness Menri did not ever wish to encounter again. “But..” This hallway, with its warmth filling his bones, couldn’t be bad. Menri gave his alternate a glance as he left the ghost behind, sitting, watching.

Ahead, the ice came to a standstill. The walls blocked him in, and when he turned back to the hallway with not-him, he found the stranger gone, and another wall of ice in their place. He could see that the two pillars of ice in front of him were acting as doors, and if he listened hard enough, he could tell the ping of water was coming from just beyond them. He tried to force the pillars to open, cause them to crack, even asked them politely. Menri just knew he had to escape these confines, this cold prison. The sound of the dripping water echoed around the small space and reverberated through his even smaller body. It was when he finally laid down and gave up that the ice - with a creaking loud enough to shake the entire room - opened.

Another wall faced Menri – small and diminutive against the backdrop of soaring ice, and made out of sheer and hard crystal. He faced the crystal bravely, looking closely. No odd visions and terrifying specters gazed back at him with sharp eyes and wilting flowers. But a large basin sat carved from the face of the large crystal, dripping water down into a pool below. The water glistened with a dark light, coming from the center of the small puddle. Menri stepped forward to look down into the water and saw his reflected and warped self again. He stumbled back, falling onto the crystal and snorting, small clouds of warm air fogging around his face. He took a few steps back, watching as the pool of water rippled with each droplet. The pinging of the drops began to hurt, and Menri turned tail and ran.

He made it back to the central split of hallways and could see the entrance to the Atrium from where he was. He stepped forward to escape this bizarre reflecting room and looked back. The left hallway tugged at him, leaving him cold and still. He stepped towards it quietly, daintily. This hallway didn’t feel like the last one did. The last one was hiding under its warm cinnamon cloak, honeyed words slipping slowly, dragging him into a dark and gaping maw of a trap. And so, Menri walked to the ice hallway, where a black tailed jackrabbit stood on its hind legs, watching him with intelligent eyes. It felt like home, something that felt so far.

Menri thought back to his Warren as he walked with the jackrabbit. The walls were a kind and warm red with whorled oranges mixed into the stone, crevasses in the walls. The floor was covered in dry grasses that smelled of hay and heat, sage and smoke. He was pulled out of his memories by a small snuffle. The jackrabbit reflected on the ice is staring once again at Menri, and then it turns and runs back farther into the icy mirror. Menri turned to the other wall of ice, seeing a large bush towering overhead in his eyes. Its branches are closely packed, decorated and sprinkled with small bluish flowers. A family of rabbits gathers close underneath, four little siblings bunches into themselves, with a fifth, lying still nearby. Menri turns his head away from the vision- he knows what this is, and he doesn’t wish to see it again. Horses gather on a sea of yellowed wheat, rippling as the wheat, on a short and stocky neck, reveals a head. Menhir stands in the ice, silently.

Their dark eye, frosted and hazy from the ice, seems to swallow Menri within itself. The head of his friend walks through the walls, leading him towards the dripping sounds from earlier. Menri balks, scared to go near. He sits firmly on the ground, afraid to discover what will be in this basin- who he will be in this pool of water. Menhir turns back, a silent voice echoing through the strange chambers. “What you will become is not what you should fear. It is the choices you make that you must consider carefully.” A delicate perfume began to spread through the air around Menri. The smell of warmed fur from laying under the heat of day; spicy cinnamon wreathing its way around his form. Sage smoke began to dribble and drip from the tips of the peaks; and it gathered around his paws.

Menhir, always a pillar of silence and strength, continued walking on. Menri felt calmer with his mentor by his side, and he continued. His birds followed, the two at his side chirping happily, and the two sitting on him also seeming to perk up. The group walked, the reflected giant and the group of real creatures. The ice began to spiral, curved and carved into small shapes as he walked. A pathway developed underneath him, sunbaked earth, red with the minerals of the ground and sparkling with flakes of mica. Menri walked slowly forward, seeing the basin again. This time, it was not suspended on a cold wall of crystal, but instead sitting in a shallow dish on the ground. There was no drip coming from this corner of the room, no, instead the water here was still.

Menri stood in front of the basin. It was simple, wooden, with a painted inside. The outside was a rich, dark, black walnut, with the inside seeming to glow gold. Translucent smoke enveloped Menri as he stepped closer, feeling like the sun on his back as he ran along plains. He looked closer, admiring the workmanship of the bowl. The edges of the wood were smoothed and polished, as if it had been held by many others over the years. He felt quite safe- like he could curl up and sleep here forever, unchanging, if he wished. But he could not. A ringing was present in the fog that surrounded him, and he knew he had more of a purpose here than becoming one of those stuck forever in limbo.

He took a long moment to stretch, waking up from the sleepiness the fog had brought over him. Menri gazed into the basin, waiting for the water to reflect his form. It glowed for a moment, and reflected someone new, someone…almost like him. Large wings spread over his back, and more birds gathered around his form. Rounded horns sprouted from his head, and the antennae like leaves atop it curled around them. A crane stood over his shoulder, its red topped head bobbing slowly in the reflection. A smaller dove sat on the crane’s back, cooing softly. Menri looked back behind himself. Nothing was there.